you should have nothing else. Then, if the bird be good to begin
with, and has been well hung--"

"There's a deal in that," said Mrs. Baker.

"Then, I say, you'll know what a pheasant is. That's the lesson which
I have learned to-day, and I give it you as an adequate return for
the pheasant itself."

"I was almost afeard it would be spoilt by being brought up the
second time," said Mrs. Baker. "And so I said to my lady; but she
wouldn't have you woke, nohow." And then Mrs. Baker, having heard the
last of the lecture, took away the empty wine-glass and shut the door
behind her.

"And now I'll write those two letters," said Graham. "What I've
written hitherto I wrote in bed, and I feel almost more awkward now I
am up than I did then."

"But what letters are they?"

"Well, one to my laundress to tell her I shall be there to-morrow,
and one to Mary Snow to say that I'll see her the day after."

"Then, Felix, don't trouble yourself to write either. You positively
won't go to-morrow--"

"Who says so?"

"The governor. He has heard from my mother exactly what the doctor
said, and declares that he won't allow it. He means to see the doctor
himself before you stir. And he wants to see you also. I am to tell
you he'll come to you directly after breakfast."

"I shall be delighted to see your father, and am very much gratified
by his kindness, but--"

"But what--"

"I'm a free agent, I suppose,--to go when I please?"

"Not exactly. The law is unwritten; but by traditional law a man laid
up in his bedroom is not free to go and come. No action for false
imprisonment would lie if Mrs. Baker kept all your clothes away from
you."

"I should like to try the question."

"You will have the opportunity, for you may be sure that you'll not
leave this to-morrow."

"It would depend altogether on the evidence of the doctor."

"Exactly so. And as the doctor in this case would clearly be on the
side of the defendants, a verdict on behalf of the plaintiff would
not be by any means attainable." After that the matter was presumed
to be settled, and Graham said no more as to leaving Noningsby on
the next day. As things turned out afterwards he remained there for
another week.

"I must at any rate write a letter to Mary Snow," he said. And to
Mary Snow he did write some three or four lines, Augustus sitting by
the while. Augustus Staveley would have been very glad to know the
contents, or rather the spirit of those lines; but